NEW DELHI, India — With a rapidly growing population and a rising economy, India is poised to become the successful, developed country it has been working hard to achieve. Yet hunger is still a daily reality for many in the country, and extreme hunger remains a significant detractor from India’s ability to thrive. Below are four facts about hunger in India.
When India goes hungry, the world goes hungry.
With a population of 1.3 billion, India is home to one-third of the world’s poor. Despite a growing economy, more than 30 percent of the population is considered to be extremely impoverished, living on less than $1.25 per day. With such levels of poverty, it comes as little surprise, that 15.2 percent of India’s population or 194.6 million people are currently undernourished. As a result, India accounts for one-fourth of the world’s total undernourished population. In order to make ending global hunger by 2030 a reality, issues surrounding hunger in India must be addressed.
The country’s youngest suffer the most.
According to the Wall Street Journal, 48 percent of children under age five in India are underweight, equating to about one in four children suffering from malnutrition. Such a lack of food significantly hinders growth in young children and presents a major setback for the development of India’s future. Worse still, 3,000 children die every day from hunger-related illnesses in India.
There is enough food, it’s just not getting to everybody.
In the past two decades, India’s GDP has increased 4.5 times previous recorded numbers. Additionally, food production has more than doubled, and agriculture now accounts for 13.7 percent of the country’s annual GDP. Yet 40 percent of fruits and vegetables and 20 percent of grains are lost along the supply chain and never make it to the consumers. The problem, it would seem, is not that there isn’t enough food to go around, but rather that the food India produces is not successfully distributed, allowing extreme hunger in India to persist.
Hunger in India is not a forgone conclusion.
Since 1990 the proportion of undernourished in India has fallen from nearly a quarter of the population in 1990 to just 15 percent in 2014. In the last 10 years alone, the number of people who are malnourished has fallen by more than 38 million. Hunger in India is still a significant obstacle for the country to tackle, yet progress has been made and success stories continue to abound.
India is on the horizon of success as they take majors step towards development and prosperity. However, hunger is still a daily reality for many in the country. The tools necessary to end hunger in India are at our fingertips – we must now make a concentrated effort towards stopping this unnecessary struggle.
– Sara Christensen
Photo: Flickr